Mhsc

Surely permanent. Stick a 20% sale clause on him and flip him again for £10m in a few years probs

Official Chelsea youtube account posted full match in case anyone is interested

Me rn

Felix is a nice lad who played with passion. He took a huge pay cut to play for Barca last year so I imagine we'd be able to agree a sensible number with him. If the transfer fee is also modest then why not? I don't think he'd be a guaranteed starter for us anymore, but only a good thing to have more technical players in the squad and strong competition for the best to rise to the top. If we're buying him for a sensible fee then he will probably have a similar resale value later. I don't think it made sense to keep him for Poch but Maresca is playing a different type of football, and probably will appreciate him in the squad. As fans, we'll no doubt be happy to have him as soon as Nkunku or Cole is injured or suspended for a game. Or when we look at the bench and see a group of fully grown up experienced pros ready to come on and try to change the game, unlike the bench we had last year. Feel like something must be happening with Osimhen and the club had to find a way to nuke the Samu deal.

Toney is 28 with 1 year left on his contract and he makes £20k per week. Would think he will wait til Jan and sign a pre agreement to join in summer with whoever the highest bidder is, probably go after some £10m sign on fee with £250k pw contract for 5 years or something to sort himself out financially for life.

I think the manager (and we!) learnt a fair bit from the games in terms of what could look quite promising and what probably isn't going to work. Also think Maresca has been more flexible with tactics than many told us he would be. We've seen him go with inverted fullbacks on either side, and then sometimes playing with one of the fullbacks bombing forward while the other one stays back. Mostly 3-2-5 in possession but I reckon there was a bit of 3-1-6 today with Caicedo, but would need to rewatch to be sure. Based on purely preseason, I for one saw some positives, but for sure there are some reasonably serious concerns. Positives: Nkunku, Lavia, Malo, Cole Palmer (yes despite only playing half a game, thought it was great to see how Maresca integrated him), Veiga Middle of the road: Madueke (might be harsh - simultaneously looks a menace in the system but also poor end product). Guiu a beautiful pressing machine that any fan would love, but obviously he needs to be more dangerous in front of goal which he will become over time - definitely one to watch for the future, much more excited for him than I was for Broja/Solanke etc, but honestly think he is years away from being a serious player (he's literally 18!). I also thought Enzo/Caicedo looked a bit average when they played. Negatives: Biggest concern is probably CB situation (based on what we've seen, we do not have a single in form CB - I wont say they're all actually bad as I'm not sure they are, but clearly none of them are playing well right now and all look liable to make serious mistakes at least once a game), GKs (we've got one great shot stopper and one great passer, if you can merge them we'd be alright but you can only play one at a time...), Reece James honestly not looked that good all preseason plus already got a small niggle again (not bad either, but doesn't look WC aside from perhaps set piece delivery), Mudryk same old Mudryk (honestly be tempted to loan him to Strasbourg and see if a full season playing every game could do something to the man as a last ditch attempt with him). Chilwell we need to get rid asap.

Everyone definitely entitled to their opinion! Personally, I think Osimhen would be the worst passer of the ball in our squad by some distance and I think there is huge potential a deal for him could turn toxic af and it may set us back for years if we do the wrong deal. €40m-€50m tops with Lukaku going the other way + him reducing his salary imo.

Was just thinking the same thing - looked good in stats, but wanted to see him play before starting to form an opinion. Looks like a great little buy. Got that dawg in him too.

Great to get to see Nkunku, Cole and NJ together

Huh just looking at the team and Nkunku isn't play? Da fuq

Decided to skip the first half while having a nice walk in the sunshine. What'd I miss?

Osimhen is a great finisher and header of the ball, and makes good runs. We should be realistic about his level though. He is a bad version of Haaland, not a Harry Kane or a Lewa type player who has overall holistic contribution, where you are happy they are in the XI whether they score that day or not (at least when they were in their prime). He is also injury prone and has had exactly 1 very impressive season which he probably wont repeat. If the deal is very good, then we could take a look at him. If he and his agent overplay their hand, he will have to grovel with Napoli that he actually does want to play there after all and stay on that sweet sweet contract he's on. Truth is NJ scored 14 league goals last year in his first season with us, which is pretty much Osimhen's average output at Napoli, even including his peak year. Signing him is unlikely to actually take us to a different level in truth, but it might be worth a look in the right circumstances.

Napoli are finished man. Don't even want to let them have Rom tbh. Let them wallow in the situation they have created for themselves.

Ah man, I was really loving this brief spell of having all of the permanently wrecked people fit. On the plus side, club has done fantastic bringing Malo in and we wont miss James that much, aside from on set pieces. Big improvement from the situation a year ago.

I think they believe the model will work for a few reasons - very debatable how wise it is, of course, but it is hard to imagine how else we could spend large sums without falling foul of FFP, given how small our revenue is outside of player transactions. 1. Transfer fee inflation, with fees continuously inflating massively over time, just by existing he may be worth £20m+ in 3-5 years even if we have just repeatedly loaned him and he's not really kicked on much from his current level, but he's built up Championship+PL experience 2. FFP rules. If we sell him in 3 years, and the amortization window is 5 years, then the book value of him is just ~£8m. So, if we sell him for £8m+ we have generated profit in the books 3. If even one of them bangs, they either make it in the Chelsea first team, saving us a £60m+ purchase, possibly in 3-5 years time with inflation that might be a £70m+ purchase, OR if they bang but we don't need them because we already are stacked there, we sell them for huge profit, which if it takes us to a net neutral in terms of real cash spend would be a huge win in terms of how we stand in FFP (where we'd have huge 'profits' recorded) 4. We put sell on clauses in all contracts at 20%, and just by having a huge number of players come and go, we stand to get pleasant revenues every year just because they briefly played here

Lukaku had to agree to a giant pay cut to get his loan deal last year and get the 37m release clause added to his contract. His wages were supposed to go all the way down to about £6m per year or about £120k pw. Still a rip off but I'm not really fussed about rushing to sell him tbh, there will always be demand for a cunt like Rom, as its so hard to find players for that position and he has that history scoring, there will always be someone who thinks about taking a punt at the kind of money we're asking for.

That's the model my man. Buy for 20 sell for 20+ in 3 years, counts as profit in FFP, stick a sell on clause on as well and we take in another 5m in a few years. Not much more sophistication to our approach than that tbh. If we didn't have loan limit rules I am pretty sure we would have a squad of 100 players.

Will be sensational when he's fit and we'll miss him when he's out, but better to have him than not have him imo Shame we didn't move for him before the US tour so he could spend the time with the boys. Hate it when players get bought after preseason. Seen so many top players talk about the importance of making preseason for your club, how if you miss it you don't really feel like part of the group when you join up and it leaves you months behind the others. Better to get him now than never but I really wish we would move more decisively in the first week of the transfer window, in cases like Neto, Caicedo, Lavia we literally paid full asking price and could have just got them in and been done with it and set them up for success.

Kellyman 100% loaned out, he plays where we are the most stacked, would be surprised if he ever actually plays for us, surely he's the standard loan-loan-sell player.

If Di Marzio wasn't a biased moron just puppeting whatever he's told, he'd write something like: Napoli wants to buy Lukaku but can't afford him without selling Osimhen. They start the season today with no top striker available to play for the club, with Osimhen having missed preseason and agreement with player that he would be sold this summer. No one has been willing to pay the asking price for him and Napoli are getting increasingly desperate. Club is in SERIOUS trouble after finishing 10th last season and already at risk of major fall out with Conte after failing to land his man in time for the season start.

Respectfully, I'll drive him there myself

Is he? He seems very two footed to me, indeed many of his assists from RW came from his right foot, with him rarely cutting in to shoot on his left. I think the club like him because they think he can play either LW or RW well. He also presses well in the high press Maresca wants to play. Personally, I'm just worried about his injuries.

What's your stance on Pedro Neto? He wasn't on the list was he (because of injuries)?

In my recollection, even under Pep, Sterling was kind of frustrating, going on a run of form and then losing it for weeks or months, and then hitting it again... But they had so many good players they could carry it. He has never been and never could be the star man of a team as far as I have seen following him since forever, but he's always been a good guy to have in a squad. Mudryk is one of those guys that, best case, starts to look like a real player at 26/27, after years of good coaching. He's definitely not the kind of buy we should be making if we want to go after young people, we want early bloomers who display an unusual understanding of the game and a calmness in clutch situations, like Cole Palmer, where age just doesn't matter. Honestly I think Mudryk could be a very good PL player later in his career but it will take time, effort, and game time. Definitely one I would press the return button on if we could.

We definitely should keep him and I'd be baffled if we didn't. Also this season could see his value peak because he will be playing in a system that suits him perfectly. Personally I'd take all of Sterling, Mudryk, Madueke and Neto into the season, 2 players for each position, with plenty of inevitable injuries between them. Next season we should clear some out to make space for the young superstars we've got arriving, but not now. We have a LOT of other players to clear out before we look at Noni Madueke.